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The World of Protozoa, Rotifera, Nematoda and Oligochaeta

Ref ID : 7156

Lian-Zhen Li, Dong-Mei Zhou, Xiao-San Luo, Peng Wang, and Quan-Ying Wang; Effect of Major Cations and pH on the Acute Toxicity of Cadmium to the Earthworm Eisenia fetida: Implications for the Biotic Ligand Model Approach. Arch.Environ.Contam.Toxicol. 55:70-77, 2008

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The purpose of this study was to characterize the individual effect of different cations (Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+, K+, and H+) on the acute toxicity of Cd to the earthworm Eisenia fetida. Higher activities of the considered cations increased the 48-hr LC50 (expressed as Cd2+ activities) linearly to different extents in simulated soil solution. The conditional constants for the binding of H+ (logK=5.41), Cd2+ (logK=4.0), Ca2+ (logK=3.35), Mg2+ (logK=2.82), Na+ (logK=1.57), and K+ (logK=2.31) to the biotic ligand (BL) of E. fetida were derived from the toxicity data based on the biotic ligand model (BLM). Furthermore, it was calculated that on average 72% of the BL sites needed to be occupied by Cd2+ to induce 50% lethal effect. Autovalidation of the model with the results of the test sets showed that 48-hr LC50 could be predicted within a factor of two.